The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-time Mark Haddon

In Wired 9.12 of december 2001, Steve Silberman reported (The Geek Syndrome) that in the past decade, there has been a significant surge in the number of kids diagnosed with autism throughout California. In August 1993, there were 4,911 cases of so-called level-one autism logged in the state’s
Department of Developmental Services client-management system. This figure doesn’t include kids with Asperger’s syndrome (a milder form
in the autistic spectrum), but only those who have received a diagnosis of classic autism. In the mid-’90s, this caseload started spiraling up. In 1999, the number of clients was more than double of what it had been six years earlier. Then the curve started spiking. By July 2001, there were 15,441 clients in the DDS database. Now there are more than seven new cases of level-one autism — 85 percent of them children — entering the system every day.

According to local authorities, the picture in California is particularly bleak in Santa Clara County. The culture of the Silicon Valley has subtly evolved to meet the social needs of adults in high-functioning regions of the autistic spectrum, and the one thing that almost all researchers
in the field agree on is that genetic predisposition plays a crucial role in laying the neurological foundations of autism in most cases. As Silberman observes, when the rain that fell on the Rain Man falls harder on certain communities than others, what becomes of the children?

Mark Haddon’s novel is set in Swindon, England.